Asia

Interviews with refugees fighting injustice and official high-handedness

Chinaworker.info met the members of the newly formed Refugee Union at
the Prince Edward offices of International Social Service Hong Kong
(ISS-HK), which they occupied for one week, starting Tuesday 11
February, before being evicted by a court order. Two other welfare
offices in Mong Kok and Tsuen Wan have also been occupied. ISS-HK
receives government funding to administer social welfare payments to
cover asylum seekers’ rent and emergency food provisions. These
allowances are very low – so low, that it is hard to conceive how anyone
survives like this! But there is growing anger among many of the 5,000
or so asylum seekers served by ISS-HK that the agency is failing in its
legal obligations to administer the payments.

Among the protesters who spoke to chinaworker.info
– from Bangladesh, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Palestine and Sri
Lanka – confidence in ISS-HK is non-existent. Some of these men have
been in Hong Kong for more than ten years waiting for their asylum cases
to be processed. As asylum seekers they are prohibited under Hong Kong
law from working. The allowances dispensed through social welfare
offices are made directly to landlords or food suppliers – no money
passes directly through the hands of the refugees. This gives a glimpse
of the hell that asylum seekers are forced to endure in the world’s
“freest economy”.

A Sri Lankan Tamil refugee participating in the protest action told me
he had recently come out of prison. He spent seven nights sleeping out
on the streets of the city, currently experiencing the coldest winter
weather for 18 years. He eventually told welfare officers if they
wouldn’t help him with accommodation he would “do something” in order to
go to prison just in order to get to sleep.

Converted pigeon farm

Anger has flared up before and ISS-HK is no stranger to controversy. The
South China Morning Post reported last August on a group of asylum
seekers crowded into a converted pigeon farm in Tuen Mun, a facility
that lacked drinking water and hot water for showers. This “shanty town”
was run by ISS-HK which had told the men to “take it or leave it!” The
scandal erupted when one of the inmates was rushed to hospital after
drinking contaminated water.

ISS-HK receives a budget from government – worth HK$203 million in 2012
– in order to house and feed the refugees under its supervision. This is
yet another example of the outsourcing frenzy that has swept government
agencies in Hong Kong and elsewhere in the era of neo-liberal
capitalism. The government put such services out to tender to the
lowest-bidder in order to “save taxpayers’ money” (at a time when
government under-spending on social services has helped amass
record-breaking fiscal reserves of HK$734 billion, equivalent to 36
percent of GDP). Outsourcing provides a ‘firewall’ behind which the
government can shelter from criticism of the deplorable conditions being
imposed on Hong Kong’s refugees.

ISS-HK is a ‘non-profit’ aid group headquartered in Switzerland. The
Refugee Union says it is exploiting refugees in Hong Kong and, in
particular, is manipulating the 10-daily ‘emergency food’ handouts to
reduce their value from the HK$1,200-per-month (recently increased from
HK$1,060) stipulated by government, to an actual value of around
HK$6-700. The union says it does not exclude that criminal activity is
involved and demands the government undertake an investigation. The
occupiers called for the immediate introduction of an itemised price
list for ISS food distribution, something it claims it cannot provide.

Forming a union

All around the world asylum seekers face terrible hardships. Even by
comparison with many other countries, the refugee policies of the Hong
Kong government are inhuman and in need of urgent reform. Cosmo Beatson
from the advocacy group Vision First explains that a series of protest
actions by asylum seekers in recent years has forced the government to
raise its game and implement small but significant improvements. For
years since 2004 almost no asylum cases were completed, but since 2012
around 50 cases have been processed as a result of sustained pressure by
his group and the refugees themselves and the media attention this has
generated. The union is calling for refugees to have the right to work
while their cases are being dealt with, and for supermarket coupons to
replace the current unfair and opaque food supply system. The current
penalty for an asylum seeker found to be working illegally is 15 months
in prison.

The occupation of ISS-HK offices was evidently a well-coordinated and
disciplined action, and a good example of how discriminated groups can
organise to fight back against injustice and official high-handedness.
The supporters of Socialist Action in Hong Kong visited the protesters
to show support and to invite them to meetings to speak about their
struggle. Socialists support the call for government to reassume direct
control of refugee welfare services and an end to outsourcing, also
stressing the need for full democratic control.